Monday, July 7, 2014

A clip from a new Discovery Channel special envisages a day in the near future where the TSA will deploy mind reading technology to catch terrorists and police will subject suspects to memory scans in order to determine guilt.

The clip is taken from an episode of Futurescape entitled I Know What You’re Thinking. The program, hosted by actor James Woods, explores the positives and negatives of cutting edge research into mind reading technology and how it will be applied in the realms of both law enforcement and the consumer market.

“Imagine you’re going to the airport – TSA could figure out whether you’re a terrorist a not,” comments ethicist Fritz Allhoff as a clip plays of a stern looking TSA agent sat behind a high-tech screen headed up by the words, “TSA Mind Scanning.”

A woman then puts on a headset to allow her brain to be scanned for violent thoughts. The second traveler opts out of the process and is given a pat down.

“It shouldn’t be the case that TSA by default gets access to our thoughts, it would only be that people who wanted to participate in this sort of accelerated screening can opt in to it,” states Allhoff.

Another clip from the episode predicts that police will get warrants to deploy the mind scanning technology as we see a suspect strapped to a gurney with a brain scanning helmet placed over his head.

“Because you see in the future, not even our thoughts will be free from search and seizure,” states Woods, adding, “Is it the ultimate invasion of privacy? Yes, But it could also clear your good name or maybe even save your life.”

Reassurances that a potential TSA mind scanning program would begin as a voluntary procedure is unlikely to placate the concerns of many who have tracked the federal agency’s increasingly inane and invasive security policies.

Back in 2010, the Associated Press reported on Israeli-based WeCU Technologies, a company that was busy developing “mind reading systems” that would help airport authorities “get inside an evildoer’s head” by subjecting travelers to a battery of Pavlovian behavioral tests before they could board the plane.

The Department of Homeland Security has also trialled similar technology entitled Future Attribute Screening Technology (FAST), a program that would subject Americans to pre-crime interrogations and physiological scans to detect “malintent” at sports stadiums, malls, airports and other public places.

The system works by using a computer program that studies physiological indicators of a person, such as heart rate and the steadiness of a person’s gaze, and then uses the data to make a judgment on whether that individual has “malintent”.

Russian weapons and military hardware sales to foreign countries were $5.6 billion in the first half of 2014, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Monday.

“In the first six months of the current year, the amount of Russian weapons deliveries abroad stood at $5.6 billion – a very impressive and substantial figure,” the president said at a meeting of the Commission for Military Technical Cooperation with Foreign Countries.

The portfolio of foreign orders, which was $35 billion at the beginning of this year, has grown to almost $50 billion, Putin said.

"Today, it is important to ensure the progressive development of the entire system of military cooperation, … to enhance Russia’s presence on the global arms market, which should help domestic defense companies expand and upgrade production and create new high-quality jobs," the Russian president added.

Last year, Russia exported $15.7 billion in weaponry, up $2.5 billion from 2011, with plans to increase annual arms sales to $50 billion by 2020 in a race for the top position.

Russian shipments accounted for 27 percent of global arms exports last year, just behind the United States at 29 percent, according to a report by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.

Among the major importers of Russian weapons and military equipment are India, China, Vietnam, Indonesia, Venezuela, Algeria and Malaysia.

The country was still reeling from the horrors of the Jimmy Savile child abuse scandal that saw the BBC accused of cover up and culture of secrecy to protect itself.

But the expose opened the door on a potentially even more explosive scandal – the claims of a VIP Westminster paedophile ring operating from the heart of the British Establishment from the 1960s onwards.

It has led to allegations of a massive cover up across Whitehall spanning decades, pressure on the police and prosecutors not to pursue cases and the apparent disappearance of key dossiers and files detailing claims of child abuse and alleged attackers.

More than 10 current and former politicians are said to be on a list of alleged child abusers now being investigated by police and the pressure is growing for a public inquiry.

But the belated investigations only serve to highlight decades of apparent inaction in the corridors of power to get to the truth despite relentless campaigning by a number of MPs.

The story begins with Cyril Smith, the late Liberal Democrat MP, who was exposed as an alleged paedophile in 2012, two years after his death, aged 82.

Rumours of child abuse had dogged the 29-stone Rochdale politician throughout his career but no action was ever taken.

As early as the 1960s, he allegedly routinely assaulted young boys, especially in children’s homes and special schools in his home town, where he was MP from 1972 to 1992.

He was also said to have been a visitor to the notorious Elm Guest house in South-west London, now the focus of a Scotland Yard investigation into an alleged VIP paedophile ring

It was claimed earlier this year that police received 144 complaints against him over the years but no prosecution was ever brought fuelling allegations he was protected by influential friends.

Smith was named as a paedophile in the House of Commons in 2012 by current Rochdale MP Simon Danczuk.

He said he spoke out after new alleged victims came forward in the wake of the Savile scandal and went on to write a book exposing Smith’s alleged offending earlier this year.

The Crown Prosecution Service admitted claims were investigated by police on three separate occasions – in 1970, 1998 and 1999 – but each time files were submitted to prosecutors, they were rejected.

The CPS and Greater Manchester Police have since accepted that Smith should have been prosecuted due to “overwhelming evidence”.

But it has still required legal action to win an order for the CPS to publish its reasons for not prosecuting at the time.

However, Smith was only one of a number of alleged high profile child abusers within Westminster said to have been named in a 40-page dossier submitted to the Home Office by the late campaigning Tory MP Geoffrey Dickens in 1983.

Mr Dickens told his family at the time that it named leading public figures, including senior politicians, and was going to “blow it all apart”.

It was also said to contain information on the notorious Paedophile Information Exchange (PIE) which was set up in 1974 to promote and lobby the legalisation of sexual activity between minors and adults.

But the time bomb never exploded.

The then Home Secretary Lord (Leon) Brittan was sent the file but no record of any subsequent criminal inquiry has been found and the dossier itself has disappeared.

Lord Brittan, who was Home Secretary under Margaret Thatcher from 1983 to 1985, is now facing questions over his handling of the document and inconsistencies in his account of what he did with it.

He told journalists last year he had no recollection of it but last week said instead that he had been handed a “substantial bundle of papers” by Mr Dickens in November 1983 and had passed them to officials for further investigation but had no further dealings with it.

Just hours later he amended his position again when proof emerged that he had written to Mr Dickens in March 1984 to say the dossier had been assessed by prosecutors and handed to the police.

Over the weekend, Mark Sedwill, the Home Office permanent secretary, confirmed that a review had not found “a single dossier from Mr Dickens”.

However, officials did uncover “several sets of correspondence over a number of years” from the MP, who died in 1995, to several Home Secretaries containing allegations of sexual offences.

Mr Sedwill also revealed that 114 official files relating to historic allegations of organised child abuse have also gone missing.

The documents, which related to a 20-year period between 1979 and 1999, were "presumed destroyed, missing or not found", he said.

There are also questions over what happened to evidence surrounding a senior Tory MP who was said to have been found with child pornography videos by a customs officer in the 1980s.

The politician, a former MP, is believed to be another name in the Dickens’ dossier and was stopped in Dover after acting suspiciously.

The videos, which allegedly involved children under 12 taking part in sex acts, were passed to the officer’s superiors but the MP was never arrested or charged. The tapes and paperwork have also since gone missing.

The customs officer has since spoken to detectives from Operation Fernbridge, the Scotland Yard investigation in to Cyril Smith and others at the Elm Guest House.

Fernbridge was set up after Labour MP Tom Watson raised the issue of child abuse at Prime Minister's Questions in October 2012.

He spoke of "clear intelligence suggesting a powerful paedophile network linked to Parliament and No10".

The revelations come amid a series of other sexual allegations centring on Westminster.

It emerged over the weekend that Lord Brittan himself has been questioned by police in connection with a rape allegation.

He was understood to have been interviewed under caution last month after a woman claimed she was raped in London in 1967. The peer is believed to strongly deny the allegation.

Last month, police searched the Westminster office of the Labour peer Lord Janner of Braunstone in connection with historical child sex abuse allegations.

The search was part of an ongoing inquiry linked to children’s homes in Leicestershire and came after officers searched the 85-year-old politician’s home in Golders Green, north-west London, in December.

In the classic scene from the epic movie Apocalypse Now,” directed by Francis Ford Coppola and written by Coppola and John Milius, actor Robert Duvall gives the order for an air strike which ignites a massive fireball blowing up several coastal islands during the Viet Nam war while classical music blasts over the film’s sound track. Coppola depicted the Viet Nam war from the psychedelic perspective of soldiers beyond the front lines with their minds altered by heroin, coke, and psychotropic drugs. Thus the movie goer experiences the Viet Nam war as a virtual reality psychedelic nightmare. [Must read book: Apocalypse Soon, out of print, only 30 books left in stock]

Ironically, John Milius, who wrote the screenplay with Copolla, was one of Hollywood’s few publicly identified conservatives at the time. Milius not only supported the military, but produced the 1984 film, Red Dawn, not to be confused with the politically correct remake made in 2012, which was edited to appease the new Chinese owners of the major studio that they had just purchased. Milius’ original “Red Dawn” was set in a kind of alternative 1980s where America is invaded by the Soviet Union, Cuba, and Nicaragua. In the backdrop of the movie the United States has offended its allies in NATO and European nations withdraw from their support of the U.S. and NATO, while Russia expands its influence, especially in the Ukraine. In the movie Mexico becomes a communist nation after an internal revolution.

With America distracted by its own problems, Russian paratroopers invade a small town in Colorado as part of a large scale invasion of the U.S. A small group of Colorado teenagers manage to get guns and lead a resistance to the Russian troop invasion. The Russian KGB has complete records of all gun sales made to every store and is sending soldiers to every home to arrest or kill citizens who possess firearms.

Red Dawn is interesting in the light of the fact of the growing tensions between the U.S. and NATO with Russia over the Ukraine situation, and the devaluation of the dollar. This week Vladimir Putin will tour Latin America and visit Cuba, Argentina, and Brazil. Cuba has already sided with Russia over the Ukraine and Russia agreed to write off 90 percent ($35 billion) of a Soviet-era debt which Cuba was expected to payback.

Milius is a student of military history and clearly believes military intervention is sometimes necessary to counter the Communist threat. Many historical analysts believe that America is a world empire just as much as the British, Roman, Grecian, Medo-Persian, and Babylonian empires. Going all the way back to Babylon, many of the world empires employed the widespread distribution of drugs for both social control and profit. The British Empire profited heavily from the sale of opium and used it to control nations like China.

America is the first computerized technological empire in human history, although other empires employed technology and psychotropic drugs, beginning with the Tower of Babel as a technological star gate, and Nazi Germany was a dictatorship which used scientific mind control and the science of eugenics.

America is the first empire in history which has taken Aldous Huxley’s phrase “a scientific dictatorship where men will learn to love their servitude” as an actual game plan for world domination. America not only has the world’s most powerful military, but America also has militarized science and technology to control the world by controlling people’s thoughts, emotions, and moods. Since the early 1950s when the military industrial complex brought in large numbers of Nazi scientist in competition with Russia, the American Empire has expanded through neurological science and computer technology.

It was the military-industrial complex which invented the internet and from there it created a “world brain” through social media, which can create an “emotional contagion” allowing a total surveillance state where a person’s future actions can be predicted in the manner depicted in the movie Minority Report, starring Tom Cruise, where a person can be convicted of a “pre-crime.”

Arab Springs, revolutions, political popularity, or political protest can be created through a synergy of neurological science, social media, EMF waves, drugs, GMO foods, and food additives. In addition, a total global Orwellian surveillance state has been erected. While most people believe these technologies will come in the next 100-200 years, science fiction technologies like computer-brain interfaces, computers that can read and photograph what you are thinking and dreaming, synthetic telepathy, images and words that can be projected inside a person’s head, and the erasing of memories like in the movie Total Recall are now operational.

The American Empire, like the “American Dream” is merely a holographic reality projected by a multi-dimensional technocratic elite. I remember decades ago when I first arrived in Hollywood to work as a feature film producer of science fiction movies. I had grown up watching the illusions of Hollywood on my TV screen in Queens, New York City. When I arrived in Hollywood I was suddenly struck by the fact that it was radically different from the virtual or holographic reality generated by decades of popular television shows and movies. First, Hollywood was practically mythological; it simply did not exist as it was depicted on TV. Hollywood Blvd. and Sunset Blvd. were filthy with bums, street people, drug addicts, pimps, and prostitutes crowding the streets. There was garbage everywhere and urine-stained the “Hollywood stars” imbedded on the sidewalk. You would see some great name from movie history on a star on the pavement and then a broken wine bottle, garbage, urine stains, and things like the Grumman’s Chinese theatre surrounded by bums, gang members, and hustlers, making it dangerous to walk there at night. Although the authorities have cleaned it up somewhat, the Hollywood that has been artificially created in the mass mind of the world does not exist… it is an illusion!

In addition, the beaches were filled with drifters, bums, and the homeless, who would defecate and urinate in the sand. Yes, the elite of the entertainment industry live in exclusive, palatial homes cut off from public view, but this is only a tiny part of what is called Hollywood.

America is very much like Hollywood; the golden days of America and the American Dream have passed and what has replaced it is a virtual reality and a holographic America. The basic foundation of America is the Judeo- Christian belief that if you work hard with the freedom to pursue your dream, you can live a better life and pass it on to your children. An analysis by USA Today shows that in order to live the America dream it would cost the average family of four over $130,000 a year. Only 16 million American homes, or one in eight, can now afford that dream.

This deconstructing of the American Dream did not happen by accident. The idea since the early 1900s was to destroy America and rebuild it as a “workers paradise,” which basically means Communism. The final stages of that plan are now at work, but the average America is hypnotized by television, entertainment, drugs, iPhones, and porn and lives in a virtual reality. All you have to do is walk through any public place like a shopping mall or a large store and attempt to have a meaningful conversation with anyone. You will look into their eyes and see that robotic glaze like they were in a trance. The majority of people are capable of making small talk, but if you get into anything substantive they will look at you with suspicion and repeat the mantras of political correctness they have been programmed with.

It is a very sobering thing to realize that even though fireworks still go off on the Fourth of July most Americans have almost no idea what they represent. They live in a carefully programmed holographic reality. While watching a big-name preacher on television the evening of July Fourth I looked at the brainwashed masses filling the stadium to hear a clearly hypnotic message that promised them that all their dreams can come true, but the content of his sermon was completely cut off from reality. This preacher and his wife perpetuate the virtual reality.

America has become an illusion just like Hollywood. There is a way back from the illusion and that way is called truth. Truth is more powerful than any virtual or holographic reality and that is why great efforts are made to suppress the truth. The power of truth does not lie in destruction... truth always brings creation and life. If you read the words of this article and are tempted to despair, than you have missed the point. Everything in all creation, the universe, galaxies, planet Earth, DNA, and the world itself was created by truth. Truth is like light and even the most microscopic amount of truth is like a small ray of light in a completely darkened football stadium. This one tiny ray of light or truth can light up an infinite mass of darkness. When your mind begins to see the light through the holographic reality, you will learn what it means when it was said, “you will know the truth and the truth will set you free.” This truth and light are not mystical, but reflect another holographic project from the Source all truth

Bravo Sierra is a term which can be best applied to the report that the “organic” United States is going to rise up and declare civil war against the banker-controlled Obama administration and the commencement date for this popular uprising would be July 4th. As of this writing, it is July 6th and the Obama administration is still stealing and dealing. I can barely write about this nonsense because I cannot control my hysterical laughter.

General Carter Hamm

This bogus report further stated that the deposed former commander of AFRICOM, General Carter Hamm, would be leading this insurrection against the Obama administration. Please tell me, what revolution, with leaders acting in their right mind, would EVER announce their intentions and the date of inception for an impending revolt PRIOR to launching a revolution against the ruling elite? Forget the fact that the report does not have one shred of support, it does not even make sense. However, what does make sense in the report, is that the command and control structure of the military is one of self-preservation and is still largely outside the control of any president or congress.

The very existence of the military is designed to be independent of any president or any congress. Self-preservation is the name of the game. During the Eisenhower years, there was the infamous Continuity of Government plans, and then there was the secretive continuity of the military which has received scant attention.

The Military Controls the Nuclear Arsenal

After the introduction of nuclear weapons to the Navy, the military decided to keep control of the nuclear arsenal in case of a foreign takeover of our government, similar to the one that we see today.

My father was one of the Navy personnel that was in charge of installing nuclear weapons on the carrier Roosevelt which was the first naval vessel to be retrofitted with nuclear weapons. My father’s job consisted of rewiring the Combat Information Center (CIC) in the pursuit of this goal. The carrier departed Jacksonville and sailed around the southern tip of South America as they worked on this endeavor away from the watchful eye of the Soviets. In 1962, nuclear weapons were first installed on American submarines. The submarine fleet has its own command structure, wears its own unique uniforms, has its own disciplinary procedures that are not totally in line with United States Code of Military Justice and the control of these nuclear weapons has never been surrendered to an American president and this is by design.

Traitors Among Us

The Alger Hiss UN related spy scandal and Senator McCarthy’s pursuit of communists who had infiltrated the State Department made an impression on the military.

Obama could fire every single officer above the rank of Lieutenant and still not be able penetrate the command structure of the military’s control of nuclear weapons because of the manner in which the control structure is organized. I do not have all the details of this organizational structure, and I have pledged to not reveal the operational details that I do know, except to say that some of the control structure lies outside of active duty military personnel and therefore, outside the reach of any president.

The Bravo Sierra Report On a July 4th Revolution

Inside of every piece of disinfo, is an element of truth. Hamm lost his AFRICOM command over his failure to follow presidential orders to abort a rescue mission with regard to the murder of Ambassador Chris Stevens. This is an important development because it points to the fact that some of the military has reached the point of mutiny against the Obama administration over several key issues, most of which has to do with preserving the autonomy of the military’s most precious asset, namely, its nuclear weapons. However, what this does not indicate is that there will be a preannounced attack upon this administration. The military’s resistance is more covert and passive at this point.

A Manufactured Crisis

Most of these people are not being screened before being released across the country.

In late June, I responded to the video evidence which clearly showed UN military vehicles being transported throughout the United States. Nothing happens in isolation, so one must consider the context of these sightings. Subsequently, one need not look any further than what is going on at our southern border. I painstakingly detailed the possible pandemic health threats at our border related to the admission of untold numbers of foreign illegal aliens into our country. I documented, along with the help of Dr. Jane Orient, the potential health threats inspired by the present immigration crisis (e.g. potential Ebola from thousands of West African immigrants being illegally admitted to the country, Dengue Fever from illegal aliens coming from Honduras and Guatemala, and drug resistant TB from illegal aliens from southern Mexico, Panama, Venezuela and El Salvador).

I further detailed how members of the US Border Patrol have already contracted drug resistant TB and scabies and they are laundering their work clothes on site in order to protect their families. The designed medical crisis has begun and all that it needs to turn into the ultimate false flag event is to let nature take its course.

The Foothold for the UN Takeover

The United Nations is poised to swoop in, under the guise of humanitarian aid, and “assist” in the coming health crisis. Their presence will be welcomed by most because they will appear to be here to simply help with the present health crisis. Once the UN is out in the open as a police force, they will have gained their foothold and their subsequent power will grow exponentially. Then it will be a short step to begin enforcing the UN Small Arms Treaty Ban and all that comes with martial law which will be precipitated about by this manufactured health crisis.

Until the UN has control of America’s nuclear weapons, they cannot hope to completely subjugate this country. Part Two of this three part series will delineate the sides of the coming conflict. What you are going to read is more threatening and more plausible than the nonsense about a July 4th revolution.

For most people, the concept of an implantable chip is either controversial or the next step of human progression. For many, they see the concept to the betterment of mankind, but for others, they see mankind’s control and submission. For the latter, one group dubbed the End Timers — or Watchmen — see it as initial technology necessary for the “Mark of the Beast.”

The idea that implantable chips could be used as technology for the “Mark of the Beast” has been talked about for many years. Many Evangelical teachers of End Times, such asPerry Stone and Jack Van Impe, have talked about how implantable chips may be used as such, primarily utilizing RFID and smartchip tech too. However, the belief that technology will be the primary backing for the “Mark of the Beast” has picked up thanks to articles by Now The End Begins and movies by Pure Flix such as The Mark. Despite this, news has arrived that suggests implantable chips are good for mankind, as proven by two separate reports from ABC News. The video on top of this article was recently uploaded on YouTube while the one below this paragraph was uploaded two years ago.

RFID Microchips forced in Philippines!

Life without a Microchip Implant will be very hard soon

Why You Should Refuse To Be Microchipped

How the NWO Elite will get you to take the RFID Chip

RAPTURE SIGN| 666 "Mark of the BEAST" Now Being ACTIVATED! and Completed By 2017! (Perry Stone)

Nevertheless, the implantable chip stories seem to have some age to them. So why are they picking up traction as of late? It may be because of how the military is developing implantable chips to treat soldiers with PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder), which we reported here on The Inquisitr. Maybe the military finds the chips a better option than the alternatives, being medical marijuana or pets. Still, it has caused the End Time online communities, including the Pre-Tribulation Rapture Forum, Grace Centered, Rapture Forums, and the Prophecy Forum to heavily discuss the “Mark of the Beast” as of late.

Because of this uptick in interest, another report was recently published on BREATHEcast that the desensitization leading to the “Mark of the Beast” will cause people to be willing to take it. The report included a study by Accenture in which they surveyed people in the United Kingdom, Australia, France, Germany, and the United States, revealing that 89 percent of citizens are willing to provide details, such as fingerprints, to speed up traveling for convenience. These new findings have the Watchmen believing this is all a huge plan to desensitize the population to accept the “Mark of the Beast” spoken in the Holy Bible. There is already RFID chips in cellular phones, credit cards, and other small electrical items we use on a daily basis that monitors personal information, financial accounts, and even a person’s exact location.

Whether or not technology will be the primary core for the “Mark of the Beast,” it has all the End Timers concerned, so much that there are numerous reports of people refusing to accept implantable chips and tattoos mandated by hospitals or schools. Even here onThe Inquisitr, we have a report of a teenage girl refusing to accept a RFID tag because of she believed it was the “Mark of the Beast.” If it was or not, I am assuming the girl thought it was better to be safe than sorry.

The largest bank in the United States now allegedly requires its employees to state whether or not they are supporters of the homosexual lifestyle.

JPMorgan Chase, headquartered in New York City, is the United States’ largest bank, with total assets of over $2.5 trillion. The bank has overtly supported homosexuality for several years, appearing in several “gay pride” events and even offering a number of special benefits to bank employees who identify as “LGBT.”

Now, JPMorgan Chase has taken their LGBT support even further, reportedly requiring all their employees to voice whether or not they support the so-called “LGBT community”. According toPrinceton University Professor Robert George, the bank recently surveyed their workers, asking them to state which of the following descriptions applied to them:A person with disabilities;A person with children with disabilities;A person with a spouse/domestic partner with disabilities;A member of the LGBT community;An ally of the LGBT community, but not personally identifying as LGBT.

An unnamed individual, who has worked at JPMorgan Chase for 11 years, first alerted George of the unprecedented survey. The employee told George, who is chair of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, that the questionnaire “had many of us scratching our heads.”

“What?! What kind of question was that?” the employee had wondered. “An ‘ally’ of that community? What’s the alternative if you don’t select that option? You’re not [an] ally of the LGBT community?”

The employee further explained that the survey was not anonymous, since it required everyone to enter personal identification information. The implications, he suggested, are chilling.

“With the way things are going and the fact that LGBT rights are being viewed as pretty much tantamount to the civil rights movement of the mid-50s to late 60s, not selecting that option is essentially saying ‘I’m not an ally of civil rights’; which is a vague way to say ‘I’m a bigot,’” he told George. “The worry among many of us is that those who didn’t select that poorly placed, irrelevant option will be placed on the ‘you can fire these people first’ list.”

With Austrian bank contagionimpacting European stocks on Friday, we thought it worth a look at the 'recovering-out-of-the-crisis-all-is-well-and-stress-tests-will-prove-it' European banks. It appears, having bid with both hands and feet for Europe's peripheral debt - thus solidifying the very sovereign-financial-system linkages that were the cause of the European crisis contagion - Europe's banks had the jam stolen from their donuts when Mario Draghi did not unveil a massive bond-buying scheme (by which they could offload their modestly haircut collateral at 100c on the euro, raise cash, take profits, and all live happily ever after). A TLTRO is no use to the banks who now know even the first sign of one dumping his domestic bonds will cause this illiquid monstrosity to collapse under its own weight. It is clear - as the following chart shows - that investors are quickly coming to that realization and exiting European bonds in a hurry.

Since Draghi failed to unveil QE, European banks have collapsed to one-year lows relative to world banks...

Of course, some knife-catching Bill-Miller-ite will come to the rescue, buying-the-dip - but as BNP's Ian Richards notes,

"The prospect of supporting material credit growth and better earnings revisions in the banking sector is further down the line than the market had hoped.”

As the Obama administration continues to alienate almost everyone else around the entire planet, an increasing number of prominent international voices are starting to question why the U.S. dollar should be so overwhelmingly dominant in global trade. In previous articles, I have discussed Russia's "de-dollarization strategy" and the fact that Gazprom is now asking their large customers to start paying in currencies other than the dollar. But this is not just a story about Russia any longer. As you will read about below, China and South Korea have just signed a major agreement to facilitate trade with one another using their own national currencies, and even prominent French officials are now talking about the need to use the dollar less and the euro more. John Williams of shadowstats.com recently said that things have never "been more negative" for the U.S. dollar, and he was right on the mark. The power of the almighty dollar has allowed all of us living in the United States to enjoy an extremely high standard of living for decades, but as that power now fades it is going to have profound implications for the U.S. economy. In future years the value of the dollar will go down substantially, all of the imported goods filling our stores will become much more expensive, and it is going to cost the federal government a lot more to borrow money. Unfortunately, with the stock market hitting all-time record highs and with the mainstream media endlessly touting an "economic recovery", most Americans are not paying any attention to these things.

French oil giant Total is one of the largest energy companies in the entire world. On Saturday, Total's CEO made an absolutely stunning statement. According to Reuters, he told reporters that there "is no reason to pay for oil in dollars"...

"Doing without the (U.S.) dollar, that wouldn't be realistic, but it would be good if the euro was used more," he told reporters.

"There is no reason to pay for oil in dollars," he said. He said the fact that oil prices are quoted in dollars per barrel did not mean that payments actually had to be made in that currency.

If Gazprom's CEO had made such a statement, it would not have really surprised anyone. But this came from a high profile French CEO. A decade ago, it would have been unthinkable for him to say such a thing. Wars have been started over less. Virtually all oil and natural gas around the planet has been bought and sold for U.S. dollars since the 1970s, and this is an arrangement that the U.S. government has traditionally guarded very zealously. But now that Russia has broken the petrodollar monopoly, the fear of questioning the almighty dollar appears to be dissipating.

And at this point even French government officials are not afraid to publicly discuss moving away from the U.S. dollar. Just check out what French finance minister Michel Sapin said to the press this weekend...

French finance minister Michel Sapin says "now is the right time to bolster the use of the euro" adding, more ominously for the dollar, "we sell ourselves aircraft in dollars. Is that really necessary? I don’t think so." Careful to avoid upsetting his 'allies' across the pond, Sapin followed up with the slam-dunk diplomacy, "This is not a fight against dollar imperialism," except, of course - that's exactly what it is... just as it was over 40 years ago when the French challenged Nixon.

The remarks come a week after Paris-based bank BNP Paribas (BNP) SA was slapped with a $8.97 billion fine by U.S. authorities for transactions carried out in dollars in countries facing American sanctions. The fine spurred debate in France about the right of the U.S. in extending its regulatory reach beyond its borders.

This is yet another example of how the Obama administration is alienating friends all over the globe.

In fact, there doesn't seem to be anyone that the Obama administration is afraid of crossing. Just a couple of days ago, the German press exploded in outrage when Germany arrested a U.S. spy. Why we feel the need to spy on our friends is something that I will never figure out.

And of course our relations with Russia are probably the worst that they have been since the end of the Cold War at this point. And as the Russians now rapidly move away from the U.S. dollar, they seem intent on bringing the rest of "the BRICS" with them. The following is a short excerpt from a recent Voice of Russia article entitled "BRICS morphing into anti-dollar alliance"...

However, in her discussion with Vladimir Putin, the head of the Russian central bank unveiled an elegant technical solution for this problem and left a clear hint regarding the members of the anti-dollar alliance that is being created by the efforts of Moscow and Beijing:

"We've done a lot of work on the ruble-yuan swap deal in order to facilitate trade financing. I have a meeting next week in Beijing," she said casually and then dropped the bomb: "We are discussing with China and our BRICS parters the establishment of a system of multilateral swaps that will allow to transfer resources to one or another country, if needed. A part of the currency reserves can be directed to [the new system]." (source of the quote: Prime news agency)

It seems that the Kremlin chose the all-in-one approach for establishing its anti-dollar alliance. Currency swaps between the BRICS central banks will facilitate trade financing while completely bypassing the dollar. At the same time, the new system will also act as a de facto replacement of the IMF, because it will allow the members of the alliance to direct resources to finance the weaker countries. As an important bonus, derived from this "quasi-IMF" system, the BRICS will use a part (most likely the "dollar part") of their currency reserves to support it, thus drastically reducing the amount of dollar-based instruments bought by some of the biggest foreign creditors of the US.

Of course the key economic player in the BRICS alliance is China.

So will China actually go along with a "de-dollarization" strategy?

Well, the truth is that China has been making moves to become more independent of the dollar for a long time, and it has just been announced that China and South Korea have signed an agreement which will mean more direct trade between the two nations using their own national currencies...

China's central bank has authorized the Bank of Communications, the country's fifth largest lender, to undertake yuan clearing business in the South Korean capital, the People's Bank of China (PBoC) said in a statement.

The announcement came as Chinese President Xi Jinping wrapped up a state visit to South Korea on Friday. China is seeking to make the yuan - also known as the renminbi - used more internationally in keeping with the country's status as the world's second biggest economy behind the United States.

Unfortunately, most Americans don't care about any of this at all.

They don't understand that more U.S. dollars are actually used outside the United States than are used inside the United States. Because most of the rest of the world uses U.S. dollars to trade with one another, this has created a tremendous amount of artificial demand for our currency. In other words, the value of the U.S. dollar is much higher than it otherwise would be, and this has enabled us to import trillions of dollars of products at ridiculously low prices. The standard of living that we enjoy today is highly dependent on this arrangement continuing.

And our ability to fund the federal government and our state and local governments is heavily dependent on the rest of the planet loaning our dollars back to us for next to nothing. If we actually had to pay realistic market rates to borrow money, the finances of the federal government would have already collapsed long ago.

So it is absolutely imperative for our own economic well-being that this "de-dollarization" trend not accelerate any further. The rest of the world could actually severely hurt us by deciding to stop using the almighty dollar, and the more that the Obama administration antagonizes both our friends and our foes around the globe the more likely that is to happen.

We live in very perilous times, and the almighty dollar is more vulnerable now than it has been in decades.

If it starts collapsing, it will take down the entire U.S. financial system with it.

Let us hope that we still have a bit more time before that happens, because once the U.S. dollar collapses it will be exceedingly painful for all of us.